The real secret weapon for authors these days has nothing to do with self-publishing versus Big Publishing, or posting the book here versus posting it there. The real secret weapon? Treat your book like any other product and provide superior customer service!
Here is a brief example of an author who went the extra mile and made such a positive impression on me that he’ll have my eyeballs—for the duration of the free sample, anyway—for any book he ever puts out again. Joe Haldeman, I salute you and you have won me as a fan.
THE CRISIS
The short version is, I lost some some books during The Great Hard Drive Crash of 2010. I had some good backups, and it could have been much worse, but a few books fell through the cracks. One of them was ‘The Accidental Time Machine’ by Joe Haldeman.
Unfortunately, I had made the critical error of purchasing this book, in better days, from the now dying Fictionwise. It’s one of the ones they have opted not to carry since the Agency Apocalypse, and as a result I was getting error messages every time I tried to re-download it. I have about a dozen books I have tried, in vain, to re-download over the last month. About half of them I can do without re-reading, this this one was one I wanted to read again.
JOE HALDEMAN TO THE RESCUE
Fictionwise responded to my repeated queries about this issue with form letters. It was clear they didn’t care about me and my business. But it occurred to me that Mr. Haldeman might be able to assist me.
I logged into my Fictionwise account and took a screenshot of my library page, showing the purchased book with my secure eReader download link, and I emailed it to Mr. Haldeman with an explanation about the situation. A day later, he emailed me back a blank message and I replied that perhaps he was having some computer troubles.
This evening (a mere day and a half after my initial query) I received a very nice email from his wife stating that he actually WAS having computer problems, but that he wanted me to be looked after, so she was handling this. She emailed me a Word file with his final manuscript for the book and offered to mail me an autographed copy of the paperback to boot.
That, right there, is how to do it, my friends. No ‘OMG no digital files allowed, you potential pirate, you!’ No ‘this is my publisher/agent/distributor’s fault and not something I can control.’ No form letter with a link to the Kindle store so I could buy the book again and pay a second time. Instead, an apology that I was having difficulties, and a fix straight off the author’s wife’s own hard drive.
I will remember this.
That’s amazing. I always heard that the Haldemans were great people.
This piece proves a number of arguments going on in LinkedIn eBook-realted discussion groups lately, which are mainly on whether or not “social media” sites are an effective adverisement tool for eBook writers.
Customers these days seem to like knowing they are buying from humans, verses a ‘faceless’ conglomerate. When my husband and I put our eBooks out for sale in early 2008, one of our first customers bought a book at 6pm and emailed us right away that she could not open the file. I happened to be online and answered her back with an apology and attached a fresh copy. She wrote back at once expressing heartfelt surprise at being answered so quickly, let alone with a new, readable file to enjoy. Not only did this particular customer buy the rest of our titles, she recommended us to her various lists of contacts and thus spawned several more sales.
Great customer service is indeed the ‘indy’ writers secret weapon in establishing a loyal following.
Meredith: that’s certainly what all of the experts are telling aspiring authors. There’s no room for a JD Salinger or a Harper Lee today. Now you need to be a gregarious people-person if you want to sell books.
Being good-looking is a giant plus, too: for jacket photos, TV interviews, and book signings. This is more for printed books, of course.
I personally think it’s kind of unfortunate. Some of the world’s best art (in all creative media) came from artists who were/are withdrawn, unpleasant, or even disturbed. For books, we’re cutting ourselves off from that source.
Awesome, I will remember this as well. It helps that I have enjoyed his books so far, but this story will make me all the more willing to check out his next book(s).